Francisca Afua
About
Francisca Afua Opoku-Boateng, CBFI – is a Cyber Threat Intelligence and Certified Banking Digital Forensics Investigator. Currently, she is an assistant professor of cybersecurity at Dakota State University. Her teaching specialization revolves around Digital, Windows, and Mobile Forensics as well as Incident Response. Her research areas include Dark Web and OSINT Investigations, General Cyber Awareness, Black Girls in STEM specifically in the Cybersecurity space, and Cyber Threat Intelligence. She is a Cyber Defense doctoral candidate wrapping up her studies at Dakota State University. She has both academic knowledge and hands-on experience in addressing growing cyber threats, risk management strategies, designing and implementing security policies, and investigating cybercrimes. For over 3 years she has worked on investigating several high-stress cybercrimes and assisted law enforcement under the South Dakota Attorney General Office and Division of Crime Investigations extract and analyze data as well as solving investigations around the state. These investigations range from identity theft to business email compromises and website scams, drug-related crimes, and fraudulent activities.
Francisca Afua is very passionate about giving back to her community and has demonstrated this in several ways from being a mentor, speaker, and presenter are at several events. She loves to participate in community outreaches that involve cybersecurity awareness. Currently, she is an ambassador for Blacks in Cybersercity (BiC) and the Google Women Techmakers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Valley View University in Ghana, West Africa, and a master’s degree in Computer Science and Information Systems from the University of Michigan, USA. She also holds both a graduate certificate and a master’s degree in Banking Security and Cyber Defense respectively from Dakota State University, USA. She is an alum of both Google Women Techmaker and AnitaB.org Scholar.
What mentoring means to me
- Mentoring for me is a way to give back to my community as through mentoring others, I get to share, encourage and enable others whether it is in their professional or personal development.
- As I mentor, I get to learn and improve myself as well in areas like my leadership and communication skill sets.
- I do enjoy mentoring because it’s a way for me to correct some of the wrongs often people do as a result of having either bad mentors who or genuinely did not get good mentors earlier on along their academic and career journey.